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Arctic Melt, by Andy Armstrong, NOAA

Caution

All technical information and scientific data released by US Government agencies (e.g., NASA, EPA…) are subject to sudden variation because of political expediency.
This caution also extends to the fidelity of the information provided by UN organizations (e.g., FAO, WHO…).

WARNING!

Point of No Return:
Unless global energy consumption is reduced immediately to below 60EJ, mechanisms that are destroying ecosystems including ozone holes, global heating, extreme climate events... reach the point of no return, overwhelm the life support systems, render most cities uninhabitable by 2015 or earlier.

Wealth & Poverty

God Bless America!

Just one serious illness away from bankruptcy

The banks don’t take every everything; it’s the pharmaceuticals, “health providers,” and doctors that shake our pockets empty!

This is 21st Century America, where you can have your money OR your “health.” Medical bills are responsible for 62 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers said today. That is an increase of about 50 percent in just over 5 years.

“More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.” Reuters said.

“Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income,” the researchers wrote.

The share of bankruptcies caused by medical bills rose by 50 percent between 2001 and 2007, researchers said.

“Unless you’re Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” Harvard’s Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said.

“Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter do so within a year,” the report said.

Some 2,134 families, who filed for bankruptcy, were surveyed between January and April in 2007, well before the latest recession began.

“While only 29 percent directly blamed medical bills for their bankruptcy, 62 percent had medical bills that totaled more than 10 percent of family income, said an illness was responsible, had lost income due to illness or some other medical factor.” Reuters said.

* Of the OECD nations, the US has the most people in prison – as a percentage and in absolute numbers

* 25% of 15-year-old students performed at or below the lowest level in an international maths test – worse than Canada, France, Germany and Japan

* If the US infant mortality rate were equal to first-ranked Sweden, more than 20,000 babies would survive beyond their first year of life
[unquote]
Conclusion:
“WE the people” don’t spend money on health; we pay ransom to the pharmaceuticals and “health providers” to provide an expensive illusion of well-being!

Start with the math. We have 300 million Americans. Subtract the 45 million — 15 percent of us — with no health insurance. That leaves 255 million Americans, or 85 percent, with it.

And the insurance is lousy, right? Not according to a 2006 ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey. It found that 89 percent of Americans were satisfied with the quality of their own health care…”

Some of our readers often wonder which of the following industries is the most evil one of them all:
The arms industry? Banking? Pharmaceuticals [and “healthcare”] …?

The answer, of course, is they complement each other.

It sounds as if you have buried your head in the sand unperturbed by the massive pharmaceutical fraud and conspiracy in this country that denies the US citizens the same democratic rights to healthcare as the French, Cubans, Canadians, Brits … enjoy.